We live in the South. The elements here are not kind to wood. As a result, a lot of us have vinyl shutters on our house. The benefit to this is that you don’t have to constantly paint the things to make them look good. The bad thing is, they will eventually fade. Once they fade, they just look bad.
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Faded vinyl shutters. This was after I washed them with soap and water.
We toyed with the idea of replacing them, but we have 12 shutters. Home Depot prices these out at $38/pair. So, for about $230+ tax, we can replace something that technically isn’t broken. Because our neighborhood was built within a three year period of time, a lot of us have the same issue.
My neighbor Sharra came up with the most fabulous idea. She used some Armor All wipes to give her shutters a new look. The idea was revolutionary to me and I put this on my To Do list. I asked her how she did her upstairs shutters, and she reminded me she didn’t have any. She has two on her front porch, so it was a pretty quick gig.
This weekend, I finally decided to give it a go. Our Armor All wipes were completely dried out. Figures. But I did have this stuff:
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$5.29 at AutoZone
We will not use any other product on our car tires. It cleans and shines them like nothing else. We have tried other products, but love how this will give our tires an instant facelift. And it was an Armor All product, so it was keeping in line with Sharra’s solution. But I had a small concern. I know what this foam does to our driveway (dark stains on the concrete where it drips off the tire). We always pull the cars in the street when we use it. I only wanted this product to end up on my shutters…not the brick, not the windows, not the vinyl siding upstairs. The workaround for that was to protect the surrounding areas. For the downstairs shutters, I used a piece of straight-edged cardboard to protect the brick.
Image may be NSFW.
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With the downstairs shutters, I also pre-washed them with soap and water. After doing that though, I realized I could have probably skipped that step altogether. This product cleans and shines tires…theoretically it should do the same for the shutters too. Perfect, considering that I had to do the upstairs shutters without killing myself. The idea of hauling up a hose and balancing on a sloped roof just sounded like a bad idea all around.
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Majority of shutters are upstairs. A sloping roof to stand on adds a bit of adventure.
For the upstairs shutters, I used some painter’s masking paper and painter’s tape (on-hand items) and taped off. This protected the vinyl siding from overspray. I’m not a fan of heights, and have the balancing abilities of a walrus, so I knew that holding a piece of cardboard with one hand and spraying product with the second hand would ensure a trip to the E.R. The taping method was a better choice for the upstairs shutters, as I was able to tape off the shutters with one hand (more or less…using one hand or leg to wrap around inside the open windows.)
Once everything is taped off…spray. Wipe off the excess after it has a little time to set in. (The idea being that you don’t want the product to drip down and leave shiny streaks on the siding below the windows.) Here is one shutter halfway done.
It makes a huge difference! If we ever had to sell our house, you’d better believe this is one of the things we’d do before listing it.
My ‘after’ pictures of the house don’t speak justice to what it looks like in real life. (Note: Mommy needs a better camera.) But by the picture above, I am sure you get the idea.